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I am planning to do a documentary soon. I will be shooting with a ursa mini pro and a ursa mini pocket 4K. So I want to use a on camera shotgun mic like the sennheiser MKH-416 or something similar. Any recommendations on how to mount the mic on the camera? As also tips on how to improve the audio, as I never really recorded audio in camera before. (but I do not want to sync audio for this project, as there will too much data to sync and too time consuming.) If possible I would want to use the MKH-416 also on the pocket 4K.

ON THE CAMERA is the WORST possible place to put the microphone.
Put it on a boom and get it as close to the speaking people's faces as possible.
Or use a Lavalier Mic placed on the person speaking.

If you must use the mic ON the camera itself - just use a simple shock mount. There are many to choose from that will screw right on to a camera cage or any 1/4"-20 thread hole on the camera, or use an adapter if it has a 3/8"-16 thread on the bottom. SmallRig will have all the pieces you could ever need.

The 416 isn't really meant to be an on camera mic tbh. You can do it, but it's a little ungainly; doubly so on something small like the 4KPCC. Sanken makes a few shotguns that are shorter--the CS-1e and CS-M1, of which I'd go with the 1e for a better pickup pattern/frequency response. As the owner of a CS-3e and more COS-11d mics than I can count, I recommend their stuff.

ON THE CAMERA is the WORST possible place to put the microphone.
Put it on a boom and get it as close to the speaking people's faces as possible.

Most of us (read: location sound recordists) put a mic on camera to get audio in addition to the boom and lavs for doc shooting. There are a lot of scenarios where the camera can get closer than the boom op, so there's no reason not to have this. Besides, when you're trying to run a lean doc crew you've gotta do what you've gotta do, and getting any audio is better than getting none.

Can anyone recommend a good hard wired lav that doesn't cost a mint. For sit down interviews I don't need wireless, just xlr. But there doesn't seem to be anything to fill the gap between the cheap minijack consumer ones and $200+

Yeah maybe I need both, I will shoot everything solo, so I cant use a boom. Also shooting while driving in a van etc. So I might need a lavelier mic as well. Any recommendations on that part?

Your best affordable options are Sennheiser and Rode. I’d skip the AVX because that system does have a fair bit of latency in transmission and instead look at either a new G4 or refurbished G3 set. Rode wireless works, but I think the transmitter packs are way too big, imo.

Originally Posted by dop16mm

Can anyone recommend a good hard wired lav that doesn't cost a mint. For sit down interviews I don't need wireless, just xlr. But there doesn't seem to be anything to fill the gap between the cheap minijack consumer ones and $200+

Rode sells an XLR adapter for its lavalieres, which works in a wired scenario.

What are you shooting? Maybe a shotgun is fine, can't really make any suggestions without knowing the subject, however.....

For most documentary audio is much more important than video. For the price of the 416 you can get a WL lav and a decent shotgun. You're going to want a shotgun with low signal to noise ratio to be sure. Using an on camera mic is like locking off the shot, maybe it works maybe it doesn't. Id rather watch a documentary shot on a phone with good sound than one shot on an Alexa with bad sound. It's doc which is nice because you don't need to hide microphones, packs, wires, etc.,, larger lav capsules are cheaper and sound better.